‘Past Lives’ Writer-Director Celine Song On Telling A Bilingual Immigrant Story, Pushing Through The Feeling Of “Hollywood Doesn’t Want This”

Antonia Blyth
·13 min read
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One night, writer-director Celine Song found herself in an East Village bar in New York. On one side of her sat her husband, on the other her childhood sweetheart from Korea. As she translated the words between the two, she realized she was translating between two versions of her own life: what she had chosen and what might have been; her Korean self and her American self.

Past Lives, Song’s debut feature, features a reconstruction of that very scene. Greta Lee stars as Nora, a happily married New Yorker who is visited by Hae Sung (Teo Yoo), the boy she loved as a child in Seoul. While Nora’s is a specifically immigrant story, about those two identities, as well as two possible lives, the theme is universal. It’s also for anyone who ever wondered, what if…

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Song was Golden Globe-nominated for directing and screenplay, has Independent Spirit nominations for Best Screenplay and Best Director, and is DGA nominated in the First-Time Feature category. Here, she describes the experience of telling a version of her own story, the industry challenges of writing a bilingual script, and why being new to feature directing actually worked in her favor creatively.

DEADLINE: At the Golden Globes, you were telling me about that night sitting in that East Village bar—the scene we actually see in the film. Was that the moment that you decided, “I am going to write this”?

CELINE SONG: Well, I think that in that bar, I felt like it’s a little bit of a, “Huh. Maybe that’s something,” it’s more like that. But then of course, I have those moments throughout my life. There are moments where I just think about things that I might want to work on. And it really wasn’t even a front-runner for a thing that I wanted to work on for a long time.But it was on the what I would call a ‘maybe’ pile. Over time, nothing really sticks in the maybe pile, but this particular thing wouldn’t go away. I think that it made me go, huh, maybe it’s not a maybe, but let’s just try it.

The problem is that it was such a private feeling that I had in that bar that I just wasn’t sure if other people would share the feeling with me. Will people be able to relate to that feeling. Or is it just going to be someone who is exactly in that situation, that’s going to be the person who understands it?

DEADLINE: You were thinking maybe it’s specific to the immigrant experience or having those two worlds?

SONG: But also my kind of immigrant experience. There was a really specific way that it exists objectively to me. Then of course I share the story. This is what I like to do when I feel like maybe it is something, I told that story as maybe a thing to some of my friends. My story reminded them of that time, because maybe not crossing the Pacific Ocean and changing the language, but maybe you lived in St. Louis and then you moved to New York. It can be something so little like that too. It can be like, “Well, I was in Dublin and now I’m in LA,” right?

So, I think there is a kind of a way that they all had a story of their own, a moment where different parts of their own selves or different parts of their own history were trying to communicate with each other. Like at a birthday party where everybody’s gathered and all these different people know you differently, and then they’re trying to understand each other’s language about what they know about you.

So that made me go, maybe it is actually worth pursuing? And then of course, when I was trying to write it, what I learned is that I wanted to write it bilingually, and I’m bilingual, and the story is about the bilingualism of this New Yorker, this New York woman. But I wanted to write in bilingual and then basically Final Draft at the time didn’t support any other alphabet. I think they still don’t, any other alphabet except for English alphabet.

DEADLINE: That’s crazy, right?

SONG: Right. It’s so crazy. I couldn’t write it in Final Draft. And because Final Draft is an industry-leading software, it’s a real feeling where it makes you feel like, nobody really wants this story. There’s a kind of an implicit feeling of, I think Hollywood doesn’t want this movie. But thankfully I come from a theater. I’ve been in theater for 10 years, and in theater, you don’t expect anybody to watch your plays anyway. [Laughs]

DEADLINE: So that was your training. You’re like, “I’ll do it anyway.”

SONG: Oh, yeah. I don’t care. The thing is, I’ve always written things not knowing if it was ever going to get put on stage, and it would be always a miracle when it does. So, I’m used to that. I think I was just like, “Eh, f–k it. Maybe it’ll be a spec. Maybe it’ll help me get other jobs.” So, I wrote the script that way, and I think that really was the beginning and the end of it. And then of course, part of feeling like maybe no one wants to do it, maybe the industry doesn’t want it, whatever, that feeling is then of course helpful for writing something exactly the way you imagine it and exactly the way you want it. Yeah.

DEADLINE: Right. So often when I speak to creative people, the magic comes when they just throw away all the, “I have to make it fit. I have to make it likeable.” I feel like the reason your film has become so huge is that everyone reaches a point in their life where they’re thinking, “I went down this road and now I can’t go back. Was it the right road?” So even someone that’s lived in the same town their whole life knows what your movie’s about. They feel it.

SONG: Yeah. I think it’s about the trust that you have in your own life and the choices that you have made, because I think depending on where you are in your life and where you are in your love, you might be faced with the same question. And then you might answer it the way Nora does, which is that you say, this is the right thing. It doesn’t mean that I don’t grieve. It doesn’t mean that I don’t say goodbye. It doesn’t mean that I ignored what the other thing could have been, and I’m going to have a moment of mourning for that, that life that I never have lived. I get to say goodbye, but I’m actually going to move forward. I’m going to be very happy living the life that I have now.

But of course, I think that depending on where the audience is emotionally in their life, in their love life, everything, you might see that and be like, “Actually, she should have gotten in that cab [with Hae Sung, at the end].”

DEADLINE: But she is certain she loves her husband so…

SONG: Yes. She loves her life in New York and she loves him. So, she’s so happy in her life that she’s so happy to be returning to it, and she’s going to gladly return to it, but not before you’ve mourned the side that they didn’t have. That’s what she’s crying about. She’s crying in the way that she was a little girl. She didn’t get to cry [then], because she never got to say goodbye to the little girl. She’s getting to mourn the little girl that she left behind. But of course, I think that if you are wondering about those questions yourself, what you might be thinking is, “Well, she should gotten in the car,” as in, “I should have gotten in the car.”

DEADLINE: Yeah, it’s just a personal projection from the audience’s point of view.

SONG: It’s a Rorschach test, right? It’s like, “Well, where are you? Are you OK? What is going on with you?” But I think that Nora’s going to make the choice that she’s going to make because that’s who she is, and there’s where she is, and she loves her husband, and her husband loves her. And this other side of her life is so far beyond what she can return to. She has a whole life in New York. How’s she going to return to that? She’s not 12, which by the way is relatable for all of us. None of us can be 12 again, right?

DEADLINE: Yes exactly. I’m really curious about the conversations you had with your husband and your childhood sweetheart that had been in that bar. What did you tell them about how this story would be in the film?

SONG: I mean, both of them know, but I think the part of it is that they also know that this is of course, inspired by this really autobiographical moment, which is this moment in the bar, which I think that we experienced together. And then of course, it’s going to have to become a movie. So some of the more romantic things, or the way that it lives as a romance, are not necessarily reflective of exactly what happened, or exactly what it was like.

I don’t think that people have as clarity of the situation they’re in as they do in films and that’s both totally comic and tragic about films. That’s what makes me happy. So it’s not a documentary that I’m making. It’s not a recreation of something. It’s so much more about, well, how are we telling this story about this woman who is no longer 12 and also no longer 12-year-old Korean girl who only speaks Korean, who now lives in New York? I think that’s something that is part of the balancing of making of the film. It’s something that has to become an object from the subjective experience. It’s got to be the catalyst, and it has to stay true to that subjective feeling. But where you feel like you long for a life that you never lived, but you also are being asked to let go.

DEADLINE: Tell me about the experience of working with Greta Lee in this role?

SONG: Well Greta is not me. It’s not like I’m looking for somebody who is just like me. What I’m looking for is somebody who is just like Nora and she has so much of her personal life that she’s able to bring to her character, and I have a lot of personal things to share with her. And then of course, and center of it is this character Nora. And so it’s a collaborative experience that you’re pursuing, and it happens every day on set, because you’re showing up and you’re being like, “Well, what’s the scene about? What is Nora going through?” It’s never a question of, “Well, it’s got to be exact.” She’s such a good actor that she’ll be like, “Got it,” and she’ll move it, and then it’ll be perfect. So that’s how you’re able to craft a performance. And by then, it’s such an object, right? Because it’s so objective.

DEADLINE: As this is your first movie, what were some of the things you did to prepare before you began shooting? How did you feel going into it?

SONG: Well, I mean, the feeling is it’s a lot of uncertainty. You just don’t know what it’s going to be like. Because I was in theater for 10 years, and there are things that are fundamental in any kind of dramatic storytelling: it is about actors, dialogue, story, and that’s it. So, there is a kind of fundamental base to the work that I have done before making this movie that of course, then I was able to transfer over. To be like, “Well, maybe I don’t know how to read a call sheet, but I do know what the characters are going through and what the stories that we’re telling and how it all fits together.” So, I think that that’s the thing that I could hold onto every day. I think that some of the fears and uncertainty, that is a natural part of it.

It comes from knowing that there’s a list of things that you know, and there are lists of things that you don’t know. And in the beginning, especially for a first-time filmmaker, is that the list of things that you know is very short. It’s again, character, story, blocking. That’s what you know. And then the things that you don’t know are just endless. And I would say that probably filmmakers have made movies 100 times, even they would admit that list of things that you don’t know is very long, because every movie you’re making is new. So, all the things that you knew before isn’t going to come right with you.

But what I loved so much about working on the movie is that every day the list of things that you don’t know gets shorter and the list of things that you know gets longer. And then you just watch this list shift. And then of course, there are technical things, like I’m learning about lensing, learning about how a set runs, or learning what it is like to work with a script supervisor.

But I think something else that I felt is that there is a power to being stupid or not knowing. There’s such power to stupidity, which I think is generally true about creativity. There’s an amazing thing where I’m like, “Well, I don’t know better. So all I can do is ask.” So I don’t have any things to be anxious about, or I don’t have things to fear, because I don’t know better.

DEADLINE: You shot in Soeul and in New York. That was bold to shoot in New York. Everyone always says how hard it is.

SONG: It’s impossible. I mean, people don’t, and for good reason, because it is hellish. It’s probably the most expensive, and it’s hellish because you never know what to expect, because there’s so many people live here and New Yorkers don’t care if you shooting a movie.

DEADLINE: No, they just walk through it.

SONG: There’s no accommodation. They’ll walk right through it. They’ll be like, “Well, f–k you.” But it’s also so rewarding, which I think is how I would describe living in New York. It’s always so rewarding. It’s just a texture, the air, just the way that it feels, it’s such a special thing. And you get to capture the magic of that. And I would say that Past Lives is a New York film in that way.

I knew that every time, every piece of location has to have a deep relationship to the story. So, for example, the Statue of Liberty, I don’t think every movie set in New York should have the Statue of Liberty, but this one does, because it’s a movie about an immigrant and a tourist. So, for an immigrant and a tourist, the Statue of Liberty is a special place. And when it comes to the carousel with the glass around it, we’re talking about childhood that remains in their hearts, that they’ve been protecting for 24 years. So, there’s something amazing about the carousel that is meant to feel like, this is what childhood is, being enclosed in glass.

DEADLINE: The scene on the street at the end where Nora and Hae Sung are standing waiting for his Uber to the airport. How did you manage to shoot that? It’s so quiet and poignant.

SONG: Fnding that street was so important because it had to feel so ordinary, but it also had to feel like it’s epic and like cinema. We shot that scene in the East Village of course. And we shot that on a Friday night. So literally, if you move our camera one inch to one side or the other, you would walk right into the complete zoo of the East Village on a Friday night. So right outside of the frame, it was chaos. So many people, total chaos. And of course, our actors are having such an emotional scene in the middle of people just yelling, “Is it Spider-Man? Like, what’s going on? What are you shooting? What is this?” Just really drunk people yelling at us. But the thing about that amazing street is that it has everything on it. I don’t know how to describe it except that it’s just got every texture. It’s just a beautiful walk. And then you see it, you’re just like, “Well, this tells a story of the whole film.”

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